[opan]

MediaTek is horribly hostile to free software and would be a terrible fit in something like this. MediaTek is the reason the Gemini PDA couldn't do what the PinePhone is doing despite making some similar claims.

As for not waiting for a newer Rockchip part, it sounds like they are making it clear this is not a second generation PinePhone, just a more powerful version of what we already had. There will likely be a proper second generation with more major changes later on.

[CameronNemo]

I'd be interested to learn more about Mediatek's hostility. I only mention them because I did not see any red flags on their SoC specifications.

[my123]

MediaTek puts the responsibility of releasing the downstream kernel tree source code on the Android OEMs.

And some of those don’t comply with that.

(but otherwise, they are upstreaming support for their SoCs nowadays anyway)